7.  The applicant was born in 1939 in Tbilisi, Georgia. She was a citizen of the former USSR and continued to hold its citizenship until 31 December 2000; thereafter she became a stateless person. The applicant lives in Moscow.
8.  On 25 December 2000 the applicant applied to the passport department at the “Filevskiy Park” police station in Moscow for residence registration. She produced her USSR passport, a consent form signed by the flat owner and certified by the housing maintenance authority, an application form for residence registration, a document showing payment of housing maintenance charges and an extract from the residents’ list.
9.  The Director of the passport department refused to process the application for residence registration. He told the applicant that she could not be registered because she was not a relative of the flat owner.
10.  The applicant insisted on a written refusal. She was given a printed form on which a checkmark was placed next to the statement “failed to provide a complete set of documents”. It was not specified which documents were missing.
11.  On 15 January 2001 the applicant challenged the refusal before the Dorogomilovskiy District Court of Moscow. She submitted that there had been no legal basis for a restriction on her right to obtain residence registration in the flat, expressly provided to her for that purpose by its owner, and that the registration authorities had no discretion in granting residence registration once the appropriate documents had been produced, as had been the case.
12.  On 12 February 2001 the Director of the passport department filed his observations on the applicant’s claim. He contended that the applicant did not have Russian citizenship and that she had originally come from Georgia. Georgian citizens were required to have an appropriate visa to enter Russia, which the applicant could not produce, and, in any event, the registration of foreign citizens was a matter for the Ministry of the Interior’s local visa departments.
13.  On 13 February 2001 the Dorogomilovskiy District Court of Moscow ruled on the applicant’s claim. A representative of the flat owner stated before the court that the applicant had been living in the flat since 2000 and that the owner had no objections to her registration. The court dismissed the applicant’s claim, giving two reasons for its decision.
14.  Firstly, referring to the provisions of the Civil and Housing Codes regulating the joining of family members and other persons to existing municipal-tenancy agreements and emphasising the absence of a family relationship between the applicant and the flat owner, the court ruled that the matter should be examined not as a challenge to the State official’s refusal to grant registration, but rather as a civil action for determination of the applicant’s right to move into the flat.
15.  Secondly, the court held that the applicant had failed to prove her Russian citizenship or to confirm her intention of obtaining it and pointed out that “a treaty” between Russia and Georgia provided for visa-based exchanges.
16.  The judgment concluded as follows:
“Given that the applicant failed to produce information confirming her right to move into the flat in question, information on [her] citizenship and the lawfulness of [her] entry into the Russian Federation, the Court accordingly dismisses her claim.”
17.  On 5 March 2001 the Dorogomilovskiy District Court of Moscow confirmed certain amendments to the hearing record, as submitted by the applicant’s representative. In particular, the record was to reflect the applicant’s statements about the non-applicability of municipal-tenancy provisions to her situation, given that the flat had been in private ownership, and about the flat owner’s consent to her residence.
18.  On 19 March 2001 the applicant’s representative filed a statement of appeal. He submitted, in particular, that the District Court had incorrectly referred to the applicant’s Georgian citizenship and to a visa requirement for her entry into the Russian Federation, since the applicant had never held Georgian citizenship and, in any event, the residence regulations applied uniformly to all persons lawfully residing within the Russian Federation, irrespective of their citizenship. He indicated that the District Court had failed to advance any justification for the restriction on the applicant’s right to choose her residence. He also contended that the District Court’s reliance on tenancy provisions had been invalid because the flat owner had had clear title to the flat and there could be no dispute as to the applicant’s right to move in, since she had the flat owner’s explicit consent.
19.  On 2 August 2001 the Moscow City Court upheld the judgment. It reiterated the District Court’s findings that the applicant’s claim had to be dismissed because she had failed to prove her Russian citizenship or an intention to obtain it and because she had failed to provide any documents confirming her right to move into the flat in question. The City Court did not address the arguments advanced by the applicant’s representative in the grounds of appeal.